


It Calls

by ParadingDeath



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Late Night Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 21:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9461780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadingDeath/pseuds/ParadingDeath
Summary: There was once a small creature. It wasn’t living, not really. It was more like a mote of dust, just there, slowly getting larger, but always drifting through life.





	

There was once a small creature. It wasn’t living, not really. It was more like a mote of dust, just there, slowly getting larger, but always drifting through life.

 

_Dust thou art_

 

Not truly solid or _there._ Especially not in any way that matters. That was what he was. Until he wasn’t.

 

            Of all of the Robins to ever fly with the Bat, he was perhaps the weakest. He was not naturally gifted with flexibility or the rough and tumble brawling builds of his predecessors, but he was twice as determined and stubborn to boot. He trained more than he flew, and at the beginning it was rough. He was lacking in so many ways, but he was determined to be a person of power in his own story, taken down only by another of power, or perhaps, if he got out of the game early enough, to die of old age.

 

Unlikely. No vigilante that gets into it as he did can escape in such a way. The vigilante life creeps under the skin, nestles deep into your soul, like a bunny creeping into a burrow; except this bunny has fangs and claws and is not a bunny but a lion; one with a hold tighter than despair that has sank its harsh grip into your soul, and suddenly you know.

 

            There is no escaping this life in one piece, because it has become your life, and will be your death.

 

            Timothy Jackson Drake accepted this. He had grown from his not-life into something new, so when the bunny – no, not a bunny, a lion – reached for his soul, he looked it dead in the eye, and offered himself to it, becoming it, earning himself a name, a name that would be called; _Robin_. ~~Dust can be anything after all.~~ He was no longer drifting through life. He was _living_ it.

 

            When the doubts and the rage and the sadness and the anger and the hurt well up and threaten to drown him: to pull him under and have him hang up the suit, all’s he can do is picture the lion, his inner strength.

 

            And when he is replaced by the Demon Bat, and is left to hunt for the true Bat with only himself and no backup to be heard of, he looks that lion into the eyes – but it is no longer a lion, for lions are pack and have pride, and would never abandon hi–anyone, no, he is a viper. A snake: fast and deadly, no warning, only caring for itself, only intent on its purpose. He would embody such a thing, such a ~~lonely~~ strong creature, and he would return the real Bat to his proper place.

 

            Then, after the real Bat, who once might’ve been a father figure, has returned, he could return to Robin and take his place as one of the Birds. Alas, ‘tis was not to be. Of course it wasn’t. There were more important things than the third Robin who wasn’t actually crazy, and might be injured from what he had to do to bring the Bat back. Timothy might not be able to think of any, but they definitely exist.

 

            The viper – no, not a viper, not anymore – sheds its skin and molts into a black bird. It was a sad, broken looking thing. The wings were tattered and closed. Its body small and twiggy as though it’s starved its entire life. The eyes were blind yet wise. His new form was a crow, and it soothsaid a single thing.

 

            _We will not survive this hurt any longer._

 

            For once, Timothy Jackson Drake listened to the broken crow, because it was not just a broken crow. It was himself in the truest sense possible, even more so than the dust he came from.

 

And what else could he do, but listen? There was nothing left for him. Of him. At least, nothing that was his. He had taken Robin, become Jason’s Replacement, so it was not his. He had his photography, but that was created from stark years of neglect, made from his parents’ money, but not their love. Never their love. It wasn’t _his._ His Red Robin was born from the loss of his father, and the loss of his _father_. It was born from the white, hot _pain_ of Damian becoming _his replacement_ , except that there was never anything to replace. Because none of it was his.

 

And _it aches_. Kon-el and Bart might have been his, but they were long gone, and even then, they only belonged to themselves. They didn’t need to break themselves into pieces so they could be what everyone else wanted. They were enough, just as they were. _~~Why couldn’t he be enough?~~_ Everything he was was not his, was not him. But the crow was. ~~And before the crow was his he was a viper, a lion _-_ _family_.~~

 

Still, he is not _broken_. You have to have something for it to break after all. ~~Or maybe he was born broken, and just never knew what it was like to be whole.~~ There is no reason to doubt, or give up. ~~Everyone else is doing that for him.~~ He doesn’t need to stop or give up, just lie down and die. ~~He wants to though. God, does he want to.~~ That crow, that sad, hurt crow, it still has flight in it. One last flight. And then he can ~~fall~~ fly off the edge of the world and never stop. ~~When you fall from the sky, it feels like you’re flying after all.~~ That would be the way to go. Just on and on until you’re gone. No need to say goodbye, no regrets or false, empty platitudes, because he’ll have been going for a while, and if anyone noticed his absence, he’d already be gone.

 

And the crow will no longer be a crow, or an animal at all. He’ll be gone, with nothing left of himself, returning to what he was _before._ He would relinquish his name, revert back to his not-life, and would accept what he truly is because that is what anyone ever truly is at the end of their lines, when their wings are clipped, and they sink like a stone.

_Unto dust thou shalt return_

 


End file.
